Read The 11 Most Absurd Quotes From The Google Anti-Diversity Manifesto

A Google employee recently wrote a 10-page document criticizing his employer's pro-diversity initiatives, and that document caused a stir after it went viral over the weekend. Many on the right have praised it, and one company even offered its author a job. But make no mistake: the Google anti-diversity manifesto contains some absurd quotes. Ultimately, Google fired the employee after he wrote it and sent it out.

The screed — which the company itself has disowned and criticized — presents itself as a level-headed, non-ideological assessment of workplace culture, complete with footnotes and sentences like, "psychological safety is built on mutual respect and acceptance." But beneath that linguistic elegance are precisely the same arguments the right has been using for years to discredit feminism. Those arguments, like the bulk of the Google manifesto, rely on a combination of factually unsupported claims about gender and the equally-ungrounded belief that things are already basically fair between genders, so any further social tinkering is tantamount to "discrimination."

The conservative-minded social network Gab.ai called the manifesto a "beautiful work of art" (strange, as it's not intended as art), and offered the author a job at the company. That's thoroughly unsurprising, as this document is a perfect distillation of how the far-right movement views things like feminism, diversity and other priorities of the progressive movement.

Here are some of the most concerning quotes from the document:

On Anxiety

"Women on average are more prone to anxiety."

This is one of many claims that the author makes to support the argument that biological differences between men and women — not institutionalized sexism — explains the underrepresentation of women in Google's higher ranks. However, he presents absolutely no evidence to back it up, which is a trend throughout the document.

On The Gender Wage Gap

Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of humanities and social scientists learn left (about 95%), which creates enormous confirmation bias, changes what’s being studied, and maintains myths like social constructionism and the gender wage gap.

The gender wage gap is not a myth.

On Communism

Communism promised to be both morally and economically superior to capitalism, but every attempt became morally corrupt and an economic failure. As it became clear that the working class of the liberal democracies wasn’t going to overthrow their 'capitalist oppressors,' the Marxist intellectuals transitioned from class warfare to gender and race politics.

Here, the author is attempting to create a causal link between pro-diversity policies at Google and 20th-century communist governments. That's the kind of thing you might do if you wanted to create a negative association with pro-diversity initiatives by linking them to something most people already don't like. However, this historical analysis has nothing to do with Google's hiring practices.

On Conscientiousness

Alienating conservatives is both non-inclusive and generally bad business because conservatives tend to be higher in conscientiousness, which is require for much of the drudgery and maintenance work characteristic of a mature company.

Do they? Well, if you say so!

On The Desire For High-Paying Jobs

Unfortunately, as long as tech and leadership remain high status, lucrative careers, men may disproportionately want to be in them.

This section might look innocuous, but it's actually quite sneaky. The suggestion here is that men end up in leadership roles at Google more often than women because men simply want those jobs more.

On Work-Life Balance

Women on average look for more work-life balance while men have a higher drive for status on average.

The only way to know would be to look at some sort of study, survey, or academic research on the matter. The manifesto offers nothing of the sort.

On "Discrimination"

Discriminating just to increase the representation of women in tech is as misguided and biased as mandating increases for women’s representation in the homeless, work-related and violent deaths, prisons, and school dropouts.

No, it is not. It's a bit absurd that this needs to be said, but having a high-paying job is a good and desirable thing, while being homeless or dying at work is a bad, undesirable thing.

On Spending Habits

Yes, in a national aggregate, women have lower salaries than men for a variety of reasons. For the same work though, women get paid just as much as men. Considering women spend more money than men and that salary represents how much the employees sacrifices (e.g. more hours, stress, and danger), we really need to rethink our stereotypes around power.

It's hard to know where to begin with this. No, women don't get paid as much as men for the same work. They get paid less. No, there's no evidence that "women spend more money than men," and there's even less evidence that higher salaries are correlated with harder work, more effort, or increased stress. In fact, there's evidence that people who grow up in stressful environments earn less money when they're older — which, of course, causes additional stress.

On Fairness

Stop restricting programs and classes to certain genders or races. These discriminatory practices are both unfair and divisive.

This argument, like many in the document, relies on the belief that things are already equitable in the world, and any attempt to alleviate the unique challenges that certain groups of people face is fundamentally unfair. That isn't true.

On Being Agreeable

[Women have more] extraversion expressed as gregariousness rather than assertiveness. Also, higher agreeableness. This leads to women generally having a harder time negotiating salary, asking for raises, speaking up, and leading."

This passage, in addition to being a completely evidence-free claim, ignores the possibility that maybe, women are agreeable and gregarious because being disagreeable at work hinders a woman's opportunities for advancement. Unlike the author's assertion, the latter idea is actually backed up by research.

On Protecting Women

[H]umans are generally biased towards protecting females.

The fact that one in three women have been physically abused by a partner, that a woman is beaten in the United States every nine seconds of every day, and that an estimated one in five women has been raped would seem to suggest that no, humans are not biased towards protecting women.

In totality, this document is essentially a 10-page denial that misogyny is a problem. Any difficulties women face at work, the argument goes, are the result of their biology. That's a pretty extreme claim, and extreme claims require at least some bit of evidence. The author presents none at all. Despite the flowery language, the anti-diversity manifesto is intellectually bereft, and not to be taken as factual whatsoever.